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Mothers in Alaska’s northern and western regions are more likely than other Alaska mothers to give birth to preterm and underweight babies, and their travel from rural Alaska to get care in bigger communities is a factor that contributes to those outcomes, a study has found. The study, by researchers at the University of Alaska Anchorage, analyzes the more than 218,000 childbirths recorded in the state from 2000 to 2020. It revealed striking geographic disparities in the rates of preterm and very preterm births, defined respectively as b...
In poker, four of a kind beats just about everything. But this isn’t about gambling with chips or betting on cards, it’s about gambling with the country’s future. It’s about how four-of-a-kind senators could beat President Donald Trump at the dangerous game he is playing with the nation’s economy and people’s lives. No surprise, it’s just like Trump to gamble with everyone else’s money, livelihood and families but his own. The guy’s been dealing from the bottom, making up new rules as he plays the game from the Oval Office, and it’s time tha...
At least one refugee family in Juneau has received notice from the Trump administration ordering them to leave the country immediately or face prosecution, while at least four international students at the University of Alaska Anchorage had their visas revoked, officials said April 14. Both actions mirror nationwide targeting of foreigners who were residing legally in the United States but are now being subjected to detention, arrest and deportation for reasons including expressing views the Trump administration finds disagreeable and alleged...
Federal workers across Alaska have been fired as part of the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency cost-cutting efforts, leaving many in a state of uncertainty, frustration and limbo. Three of those former employees spoke with the Alaska Beacon about the work they did, the experience of losing their positions and their insights into how the job losses will affect Alaska. Kitty Sopow was fired from her job with the National Weather Service, based in Nome. She was given warning of her impending termination — a complete sur...
The University of Alaska Board of Regents has voted to comply with recent executive orders by President Donald Trump, including removing the words “diversity,” “equity,” “inclusion,” “DEI” and “affirmative action” from university websites, publications, job titles and office names. “We don’t think there’s anything wrong with saying that everyone at the university, faculty, staff, students, has equal opportunity, and is free from discrimination,” said Board Chair Ralph Seekins in a phone interview Feb. 26 explaining the action. The regents vot...
Wondering how changing global temperatures will affect Wrangell? The Nolan Center has you covered. A new exhibit sits just inside the Nolan Center lobby. The display is free to the public and will remain up through the end of the month. It was put together by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research’s (UCAR) Center for Science Education in 2019, though it only began traveling again in 2022 after sitting dormant during the pandemic. Wrangell is the first stop of the exhibit’s Alaska leg. Next up it will travel to Fairbanks, Anchorage,...
In the fall of 2018, officials with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and their partners celebrated what they thought was a milestone: an end to the infestation of invasive northern pike in the Kenai Peninsula. Their laborious program - they thought - had ridden the peninsula of the salmon-gobbling species that has wreaked havoc on the natural runs that are important to commercial and sport fishers, as well as to the overall ecological system. "We were all excited, you know. We spent,...
North America's tallest peak is a focal point of Jeff King's life. The four-time winner of the 1,000-mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race operates his kennel and mushing tourism business just 8 miles from Denali National Park and Preserve's entrance, and the 20,310-foot mountain looms large as he trains his dogs on nearby trails. King and many others who live in the mountain's shadow say most Alaskans will never stop calling the peak Denali, its Alaska Native name, despite President Donald Trump's...
It was 1869 and smoke filled the winter air. Cannon balls ripped through Tlingit homes while U.S. Army shells shrieked across the sky. The same type of artillery used against the Confederates just four years prior was now turned on the Tlingit people of Wrangell, in their homeland which they called Ḵaachx̱aana.áakʼw. One hundred and fifty-five years later, the U.S. Army is apologizing. The apology is scheduled to take place in Wrangell on Jan. 11, 2025. Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Army repr...
Landslides, heavy snowfall, flooding and wildfires aren’t uncommon in Alaska. But as the oceans and atmosphere grow warmer, such extreme events and disasters are becoming more frequent across the state, a new report says. The Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy at the University of Alaska Fairbanks International Arctic Research Center this month released the report, “Alaska’s Changing Environment 2.0.” The report contains contributions from dozens of scientists and Indigenous experts and dives into long-term climate trends, focusin...
Sometimes, the best explanations are the simplest. Especially when it comes to economics. The complicated way to describe the consequences of Alaska losing population, particularly working-age residents, is to explain that fewer people have moved north than have moved out of the state in each of the past 12 years. That net outmigration is making it hard for employers to fill jobs, which means reduced hours of operation, longer waits for services and less money in the economy. The decline in working-age residents — ages 18 to 64 — is esp...
State officials and industry leaders trying to rescue the ailing Alaska seafood industry are facing daunting challenges, recently released numbers show. The industry lost $1.8 billion last year, the result of low prices, closed harvests and other problems, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Direct employment of harvesters last year fell by 8% to the lowest level since 2001, when counts of harvesting jobs began, the Alaska Department of Labor said. The monthly...
Rosita Worl, president of the Sealaska Heritage Institute, an anthropologist and cultural leader, is one of 10 Americans to receive the 2023 National Humanities Medal. Worl, 87, who is Tlingit, is a longtime leader in Alaska’s Native community, advocating for subsistence practices and promoting cultural traditions on a national level. Born in Petersburg, she has conducted research throughout Alaska, including fieldwork in the Arctic. Worl has also taught at University of Alaska Southeast. She has a Ph.D. in anthropology from Harvard U...
As Alaskans from different organizations convened at the University of Alaska Anchorage to brainstorm ways to reverse the state’s continuing population outmigration, a leading state economist delivered some bad news. Dan Robinson, research chief at the Alaska Department of Labor, revealed that the latest data shows that Alaska has now had 12 consecutive years with more residents leaving than arriving. That is unprecedented, he said. “This is not normal for us. It hasn’t happened before,” Robinson said on Sept. 5 at the start of the two-day...
"Every room has water in it and mud," Debora Gerrish said at her home on Emily Way in Juneau's Mendenhall Valley, several hours after the Mendenhall River had receded from record flooding on Aug. 6. "Everything on the floor is destroyed. I'm trying to save my grandmother's hope chest from 1913." A similar glacial outburst flood last year only filled the ditches on her street, though it did knock down several residences along the river. But this year's flood saw the river crest more than a foot...
Charles Martin Nore, 82, passed away on July 6, 2024. Charles, the oldest of seven children, was born on Sept. 9, 1941, in Wrangell to Martin and Celestine Nore. In 1956, Charlie and his brother Mike were deckhands on the Marcele for their dad. In the summer of 1957, W.F. Smith brought the first shrimp peeling machine to Wrangell and asked Martin to fish for shrimp for him instead of seining. Charlie and Mike worked for their dad on the Marcele in 1957, 1958 and 1959. Charlie graduated in the Wr...
The Alaska Legislature recently increased state funding for domestic violence and sexual assault efforts, but a leading advocate says the effort doesn’t go far enough to meet the need. One of the main federal funding sources for Alaska’ domestic violence and sexual assault prevention efforts and programs has dropped over the years, creating a hole in service providers’ budgets as state funding has remained the same for seven years. Lawmakers plugged part of the that hole with a $3.7 million budget boost this year for the Alaska Council on Domes...
When the only preschool teacher left Harold Kaveolook School in Kaktovik, a village of around 250 people on the northern coast of Alaska, Chelsea Brower was in charge. It was January and she had been the preschool aide for about a year and a half. “Being with the kids and trying to be their teacher is what really made me realize I want to be their teacher — and it also made me realize I need to become certified to be their teacher,” she said. The only problem was that universities that offered the requisite courses were hundreds of miles away,...
Of all the courses offered by the Della Keats precollege program, the three high school students in the University of Alaska Anchorage lobby were most struck by the cadaver lab in their anatomy and physiology course. It’s not the kind of opportunity students from rural Alaska usually get, which is the point. Bristol Albrant, a 16-year-old from Ketchikan, said the experience was indescribable. “That’s definitely not normal,” she said. For Tanya Nelson from Napakiak, it was her first time seeing a cadaver. “Probably most of our first time,” sh...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed more than $230 million in spending from the state budget but left intact $6.5 million for repairs to Wrangell school buildings, along with $5 million for stabilization work at the community’s water reservoir earthen dams and $200,000 for the borough to start planning an emergency access route from the southern end of Zimovia Highway. In addition to covering state-provided public services, construction projects and community grants, the budget bills signed by Dunleavy on June 27 also will provide an estimated $1,650 t...
The state of Alaska experiences some of the highest rates of domestic violence and sexual assault and abuse in the nation, yet most health care personnel are not trained to document and collect medical evidence crucial for aiding victims of assault and abuse. Creators of the Alaska Comprehensive Forensic Training Academy, who visited Wrangell last week, are trying to bridge the gap in training. ACFTA provides free training to nurses and health care providers that “teaches medical providers the correct way to collect forensic evidence from t...
Several of Wrangell’s requests are included in the state capital budget of public works projects that the Legislature approved last week, sending the spending plan to the governor for signature into law or veto. Unless the governor uses his veto powers to eliminate or reduce the appropriations, Wrangell would receive $5 million toward stabilization work at the earthen dams that hold back the community’s water reservoirs; $200,000 to start planning what’s being called an “escape route” for Zimovia Highway residents to drive across the island to...
Kyle Hopkins, an award-winning journalist for his reporting work on sexual assault in Alaska, will be the keynote speaker at an event for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons (MMIP) Awareness Day at 3 p.m. Sunday, May 5, at Shakes Tribal House. Hopkins was the lead reporter on the 2020 Pulitzer Prize-winning “Lawless” series published by the Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica. The project explored sexual assault in Alaska and why the problem was getting worse. Though his work is not focused directly on MMIP, he hopes to share the parts of...
The state capital budget approved by the Alaska Senate last week includes $200,000 for the borough to start planning an emergency access route for when Zimovia Highway is blocked by landslides or other disasters. The route would connect the old logging road at Pats Creek on the west side of Wrangell Island to the Spur Road on the island’s east side. The borough estimates the total cost of design and construction at roughly $5 million, and requested $500,000 in state funding to start planning and design work. The Senate approved the capital proj...